Daybreak: Secret Meetings

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to an undisclosed location for a few hours Monday, and a new report has it that he was in Russia engaging in secret talks over Iranian arms deals. His office says he didn’t leave the country. [ynet]
• Speaking of covert diplomacy, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s current trip to Africa, nominally humanitarian, is really intended to help increase defense exports and to initiate cooperation on intelligence against Muslim extremists. [Haaretz]
• A U.S. diplomat reported that Iran very nearly or already has enough low-enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb. [AP]
• The B’Tselem organization released a new report finding that of nearly 1,400 Palestinans killed during last January’s Gaza incursion, the majority were noncombatants. The Israeli army’s numbers are lower, and of a less unfavorable proportion. [Haaretz]
• Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert testified in front of a state commission that, strategically, “there was no way around” the 2005 Gaza evacuation spearheaded by Ariel Sharon. [JPost]

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